The present invention generally relates to communication systems, and more specifically, to methods for avoiding identify fraud and unwarranted calls by authorization mechanisms in communication systems.
The conducting of voice communications via telecommunication systems is prevalent in modern society. Typically, voice communications are conducted in association with telephone numbers. Technology for preventing unwarranted calls and caller fraud however is limited. Presently it is relatively easy for an entity to pretend to be a different entity within the telecom system by tampering with a caller number (e.g., spoofing). As spoofing of phone numbers is a common form of telecommunication intrusion, known systems are unable to prevent fraud as it relates to the identity of organizations and/or public institutions.
For example, in some known telecommunication systems, the systems are unable to assist callers in verifying a commission-based relationship between an authorizer and a caller (e.g., relationship between a restaurant and a delivery person that delivers food from the restaurant). By not being able to verify a commission-based relationship, a security intrusion may occur as a callee may be unable to detect that a caller is pretending to be another entity (e.g., caller alleges to represent an organization which the caller does not actually represent).
Another technical issue of certain telecommunication systems is that such systems are presently unable to efficiently and accurately control incoming calls as present security mechanisms are often based on telephone numbers only (e.g., blacklists, whitelists, etc.). Consider a scenario in which an unwarranted call or an annoying message is sent from a caller to a callee, to block the call from being received under present systems often requires that the phone number associated with the caller be found in a blacklist to block the call from being received and/or accepted by the callee. However, such systems are unable to acquire all of the phone numbers of unwarranted callers as the numbers and/or identity of the unwarranted callers may change over time. Similarly, as an organization may be associated with a large set of telephone numbers and as the large set of telephone numbers may change dynamically, such systems are further unable to efficiently control incoming calls via whitelists and blacklists alone.